Thursday, March 25, 2010

Postcard from Borneo #3: Monkey business

Long-tailed macaques (I won't mention what these two were up to five seconds before this photo was taken)

Awwww.......

Yes, it is. Six feet long and only 'mildly' venomous. These mangrove snakes were not only hanging over our heads in trees in a mildly terrifying way but also slithering around among our riverside huts. Oh yes, and there were pythons too. And crocodiles in the river.

Chameleon trying to look inconspicuous at Poring Hot Springs.

And this, of course, was what we were all there for (well, that and in my case, the rare plants). Orang-utans have now lost 80% of their natural habitat and are increasingly confined, as this one was, to rehabilitation centres like the one at Sepilok.

However we did also - amazingly - see three of these wonderful creatures in the wild: but you'll have to take my word for it as I was holding someone else's camera at the time so they've got all the evidence.

3 comments:

Plant Mad Nige said...

Oh how I envy you! I adore Borneo and particularly Sabah! Lovely to see the naughty macaques again. Hope you get to see Proboscis monkeys - you will if you go on the Kinabatangan River.

The Constant Gardener said...

now why is it no surprise that you've also been to Borneo? Isn't it wonderful?

I didn't mention that we also spent ages watching a huge troupe of proboscis monkeys leaping among the very tops of the trees: mostly females with rather pert little noses and lots of babies: with each troupe there is a single dominant male who we also got to see being rather more dignified and sitting with his legs dangling: he had the most spectacular long nose I've ever seen.

I didn't put them in the post for the same reason as the wild orang-utans - I'd nicked someone else's camera as it had a super-powerful zoom which was much better even than our binoculars and I was taking pictures with that instead. Now impatiently awaiting an email with said pictures so I at least have some record of a spectacular day.

And incidentally it was the Kinabatangan river we were staying on :D which explains the monkeys...!

Arabella Sock said...

How exciting!! I don't think I've ever met anyone who has been on hols to Borneo before!! It looks amazing - I loved the plant and scenery pics in your other 'postcards' too.

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